Tag Archives: misogyny

Feminine Power: The Evolving Roles Of Superwomen

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photo of superwoman pictures
Remember in my “Meet The New Intern” post when I mentioned that a lot of my interests are pretty nerdy? Allow me to demonstrate:

In the minds of many, graphic novels (comic books) are not exactly the most respectful and pro-women form of literature. To many, the (often ridiculous) attire and improbable physiques of women are not encouraging. Groups of superheroes (and supervillains) in which there are one or two “token” female characters in a sea of men seem artificial and extremely male-centered. I understand that people would have a problem with fictional universes in which the heroic women are “objects” of contention between male protagonists, and villainous women are either femme fatales to tempt male heroes or only supervillains because they are getting back at a man who wronged them,* or not-genuinely-villainous antagonists whom men can seduce away from the “real” villains—who are male.

The most important thing to remember about this is that a lot of these graphic novels are outdated. Some of them were created when there were still restaurants in the United States that wouldn’t serve to women during certain times of the day. This does not make them okay—I do not buy the “it was a different time” argument.

But graphic novels are different, now. Not all of them—some writers are misogynists. Others are not. I think that it’s fair …

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Five Shades of Misogyny in “Fifty Shades of Grey”

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As soon as I heard about E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey, I knew I’d probably end up reading it.  I tend to go to the those “bandwagon books” (The Hunger Games, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and so on) kicking and screaming, but I’m somehow always convinced to read them.

I bought Fifty Shades of Grey when I went into the town bookstore to get a book for one of my students.  I’d heard about it, of course, and figured it was as good a time as any to read it.  I read that book with a mixture of fascination and disgust, and I’m pretty sure my family was disgusted with me.  I kept commenting on how skeeved out I was by it, and my mother would say, “Then why the hell are you still reading it?”

And then I lost all credibility when I got the subsequent books (Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed) on my Nook.  Why, you might ask, if I was not exactly enjoying the experience?  Well, I wanted to know what happened.

Which is really stupid if you think about it; after all, I’ve read the Twilight books, and Fifty Shades began life as Twilight fanfiction.  What that means, just so you know, is that you can do this:

Twilight/Fifty Shades of Grey is the story of an innocent young woman named Bella Swann/Anastasia Steele who somehow attracts the attention of a gorgeous, rich young man named Edward Cullen/Christian Grey who lives with his adoptive family.  Edward/Christian is not as perfect as he appears, though; there is something about him that could be potentially fatal to Bella/Ana: he is a vampire/obsessed with S&M.  There are several twists and turns, of course (notably Bella’s/Ana’s longtime friend, Jacob/Jose, who develops romantic feelings for her that lead to awkwardness with Edward/Christian), but they ultimately end up together after Bella/Ana changes herself to become a true part of Edward’s/Christian’s dark world, and they all live happily every after.

But that isn’t really my problem … I mean, to some degree, you can do that with many stories.  As one of my wise English professors once said, “There are only five original stories in the world.  The rest is in the details.”  And, to be fair, this book was never billed as fine literature.

Nope, my beef with Fifty Shades is the misogyny present therein.  A small sampling …

1.  A woman should not have to change herself to fit into the idea of a man’s perfection.

I’m not talking about the S&M so much, either.

Ana is chastised repeatedly for going out with her friends without Christian’s …

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Louis C.K. Joins in Women Bashing

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I have to start this by saying I love Louis C.K. I really love him. I find him brilliant and I relate to almost all of his angry rants. Recently, however, it was brought to my attention that the man I love was engaging in some pretty harsh female-bashing during an interview with radio personalities Opie and Anthony.

Before I tell you my take on this, let me tell you what happened. Louis was telling a story about how he had a phone interview and was retelling a joke about how he went to the doctor at 40 and they just stopped fixing things. Instead of fixing said things, they just say “Your ankle is worn out now.” As he was telling the story, he commented on the fact that a person in studio had said “I would think at 40 you would still be getting solutions from the doctor.” While the person was speaking, however, Opie or Anthony interrupted (I can’t tell them apart because I can’t be bothered to listen to their droll show), saying “Ah, the hole,” to which Louis C.K. says “Yeah, isn’t that weird?” and he’s again interrupted with a guy saying “THE HOLE” and Louis C.K. kind of drops his voice, finishes his sentence, and says “the chick.” Louis C.K’s tone here is important to me, because I’ve seen almost all of his comedy routines and this tone is the tone he uses when he’s a bit uncomfortable. It’s like a “Oh boy I gotta deal with this now” tone. He continues on with the story which is clearly about how to deal with a heckler taking the wind out of your sails and Opie and Anthony turn it into a woman-bashing session and Louis C.K. goes along. I’m not going to transcribe the interview but you can look it up it’s on YouTube.

I’m not going to lie—I squirmed a bit while listening to this mostly because I really wanted Louis C.K. to tell Opie and Anthony to shut up but he didn’t. Then again his job is to be funny and how funny would it be to start a fight on a ridiculous radio show. He did say repeatedly that the “joke ruiner” stereotype isn’t a sex thing, but then he goes on to say it never happened with a man. On the one hand he’s saying it’s not a gender thing and then presenting it as a gender thing. To me this is just another example of the fact that when guys get together they turn into 7th graders. The will never stand up to each other and they will always regress to silly name calling and insensitive activities. That’s fine when you’re 13 but when you’re in your 30’s and 40’s and your voice is broadcast to millions of people you have a responsibility to be a big boy and not do and say those kinds of things.

This is the Opie and Anthony shtick—they do this gross-out immature playground humor and they get away with it. It angers me that they’ve been around so long doing this and no one has done anything about it. JCPenny gets attacked for having Ellen DeGeneres—a successful, charitable, good person as their spokesperson, and two radio personalities in LA get fired for accurately calling Whitney Houston a “crack ho” but this goes unpunished?
The point of this rant is that there will always be playground bullies and boys that kick girls in the shins because they don’t know how to deal with their feelings about them. I was sad that Louis C.K. didn’t stand up to them but then again, it’s tough being the biggest bully on the block.



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Michelle Bachmann is Defensible … On This One

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Photo of Michele Bachmann and Jimmy Fallon
Michelle Bachmann is a lot of things, very few of them pleasant, in my opinion.  That being said, the recent clusterfuck on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon (in case you’ve been hiding under a rock, Bachmann’s appearance was accompanied by Fishbone’s “Lyin’ Ass Bitch”) was completely inappropriate.

Why?

Because it was sexist.  Misogynistic.  A cheap shot taken at a woman just for being a woman.

I mean, if the song had been implying that Bachmann is a liar, that’s one thing.  That’s political commentary, in a way.

Had the song been called “Lying Asshole” or something, I’d be totally fine with it.  I’d even agree.  After all, “asshole” takes away the gender focus.

Which was real … and wrong.

Anyway, Fallon apologized (via Twitter … don’t you love the internet?), as did the network brass.

From Slate:

Doug Vaughan, NBC’s vice president for late night programming, sent a personal letter to Michele Bachman, in which he said that the song played during her appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s show was “not only unfortunate but also unacceptable,” a spokeswoman for the GOP presidential candidate told the Associated Press. Vaughn also said the band had been “severely reprimanded.”

So, while I disagree with Bachmann’s characterization of this incident as “proof of the political bias and sexism of ‘the Hollywood entertainment elite’”, I do believe that her gender was, once again, used against her here.

Of course, Bachmann managed to somehow not capitalize on any sort of connection she might have made with feminists in a recent run-in with a high school student in Iowa questioning her on gay marriage.

From ABC News:

Bachmann told [high school student Jane] Schmidt it was the government’s role to treat all people equally, and not give preference to any group based on sexuality.

“As Americans we all have the same civil rights,” she said. “That’s really what government’s role is, to protect our civil rights. There shouldn’t be any special rights or special set of criteria based on people preferences. We all have the same civil rights.”

“Then why can’t same sex couples get married?” asked Schmidt.

“They can get married, [if] they abide by the same laws as everyone else. They can marry a man, if they’re a woman, and can marry a woman if they’re man,” Bachmann said.

Oh, Michele, a high school student … you’ll never learn, will you?



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